Cheat Me Once
by The Halfblood Raven
Summary: A Necromancer gets revenge when Jamella overcharges him.


A/N: I don't own BLIZZARD.

Ezirin Michaelis was irritated. This was not in anyway unusual, except the subject of his ire was a female. This was only unusual because Priestesses of Rathma were rare, and interactions with other females besides them were limited to what memories he had of his mother and sisters. This particular female, an ex-paladin by the name of Jamella, was a merchant in the Pandemonium Fortress, 'the last bastion of Heaven before the Gates of Hell'.

Ezirin had snorted when Deckard Cain gave him that description of the place. It conjured all sorts of glorious imagery that didn't quite fit the real deal. Oh, it was an impressive enough architectural structure, with massive columns of limestone and floors of marble, and several sculptures for flavor, but as far as a bastion went? It wasn't terribly impressive. Less than fifty people were here at any given time, against the tens of thousands of demons in Hell, which was just a hop, skip and jump to the south.

The place was also the permanent residence of Tyrael and Hadriel, the Archangel of Justice, and, in Ezirin's mind at least, his minion. He hadn't gotten many details, but the general feeling was that Tyrael had been stuck here on guard duty to prevent him annoying the rest of the angels with his, in their opinion, overly eager defense of humanity.

Of the other fifty or so people, most were adventurers like Ezirin, although no other Priests of Rathma seemed to be present. The rest, about 15, were merchants, tradesman, or other artisans. Jamella fell under this group. They were usually fairly reasonably priced, but for some reason, Jamella hiked up her prices through the roof, just for Ezirin, overcharging him for potions and undercutting him for things he sold to her. And just as fate would dictate, she was the only competent potioneer among the lot of them, so Ezirin had no choice but to go to her.

In addition to being irritated, he was also exhausted. He had just come from destroying Diablo in his Chaos Sanctuary, which had been no easy feat, thank you very much, and he was just about dead on his feet. Healing potions, while useful for closing up wounds, did absolutely nothing for the pain, and to redirect magic to deal with the pain took mana, which wouldn't let him use as many spells to stay alive.

He'd already died entirely too many times in the past week, which was what brought him to his current situation. The angel in charge of bringing heroes back from the dead, a quiet, grey angel named Acheron, charged a significant sum of gold to do so, and over half of Ezirin's fortune had gone to him. The other half had gone to Jamella for overpriced potions. The slain demons did drop potions but rarely in high enough quality or quantities to cope with the injuries they dealt Ezirin. Despite his army of 20 skeleton warriors, mages and a clay golem, Ezirin still came entirely too close to demons on a far too regular basis. These circumstances meant he was incredibly low on gold.

Ezirin mentally calculated the benefits and drawbacks of yet another stamina potion. He didn't want to get addicted to them, but if he didn't loot the area tonight the other adventurers would take whatever items had fallen and sell them for their own fortunes. Shrugging, he popped the cork off of a small white vial and downed it. A flood of energy surged through him, and he trudged back through his portal into the Chaos Sanctuary.

The Chaos Sanctuary was made of dark volcanic rock, which made sense, since it was floating on a field of lava and eternally burning souls. There were tens of thousands of skulls piled at the base of the cathedral-like walls. The whole place was dark and eerie, and if it hadn't been in Hell, Ezirin might've considered making it his base of operations. For now, he sent his skeletons out to pick up every item they could carry and bring it back to the center pentagram.

When they were done, they'd collected enough weapons to outfit an army; which was incidentally what Ezirin had had to fight through to get there. Jamella wouldn't accept any bartering from his minions, but that didn't prevent Ezirin from using them as pack-mules to hold more than his backpack could. Trooping back into the Pandemonium Fortress, he headed directly for Jamella's shop.

She looked at him with a clear sense of distaste as he sold her every single unenchanted item his skeletons had picked up. The enchanted ones, he sent to Deckard Cain to be analyzed and reveal hidden properties. Cain made quick work of it, as usual, and Ezirin promptly sold Jamella all of those as well. She gouged him out of every coin she could, and at the end of the transactions Ezirin was slightly less broke than he had been before. Purchasing potions depleted that fortune once again.

Glaring at the saleswoman, Ezirin went back into the Chaos Sanctuary and directed his minions to begin gathering corpses. He might not have known the exact formulas for many of the potions he used, but he was well aware that many of them used demon organs. Once the bodies began piling up, he took an athame from his belt and began gutting the demons. The anatomy of a demon was relatively similar to a human's, and there were few problems getting to the potentially valuable livers, brains, spleens, or in the case of the Balrog corpses, fire-sacs, used extensively in making explosives, and certain Arreat rituals. Accumulating a sizable pile of each organ type, he used a variation on Bone Wall to create platforms that his minions could pick up and transport the body parts on.

Covered in blood and gore, with minions looking much the same, was probably not the best way Ezirin could have returned to the Pandemonium Fortress, especially given that he was a necromancer, but he was too annoyed to care. He mentally laughed at the screams of a frightened Sorceress as he walked by, trailing blood down the polished marble steps. Other adventurers simply stared, and got far out of his way, and then, suddenly curious, followed him down to Jamella's shop. The ex-paladin was not happy to see him, and even less happy to see the gaggle of human followers behind him. Ezirin ordered the platform-carrying minions to kneel, so Jamella could better see the harvested organs.

"You will buy all of these from me. Full price. I just killed Diablo, and his brother Mephisto less than a month ago, and I have yet to get any respect from you. Overcharge me for the things I need to stay alive out there while you stay inside these flimsy walls and cower at darkness' gates, and undercut me for the things that I sell to you so that I can buy my potions? I don't think so. I know you definitely don't go outside to collect them, so therefore you purchase them from someone. And right now? That someone is me." Ezirin snapped at the woman.

Jamella was out of gold before she'd purchased even half of the organs Ezirin had harvested. He then turned to the rest of the adventurers behind him, opening them to the market as well. Several Amazons picked through them, comparing notes on poisons, and a group of three barbarians gave him nearly twice as much as he asked for Balrog fire-sacs, while the assembled paladins and sorceresses appeared to want nothing to do with the proceedings. Ezirin was not going to ask for details as to why. In the end, he had nearly his entire fortune built back up, an unjust merchant ruined, two Prime Evils dead, and a ticket out of Hell.


End file.
